


Stay, Just For a Little While

by JayceCarter



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Injury, Injury Recovery, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Not Canon Compliant, Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 19:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15055799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayceCarter/pseuds/JayceCarter
Summary: After Aloy returns to Meridian injured, Erend takes care of her. While Erend knows it won't last, he enjoys the quiet moment with the girl who always has somewhere to go.





	Stay, Just For a Little While

 

Seeing Aloy unconscious had Erend wanting to reach for a drink. She’d been so pale, her freckles standing out stark on her cheeks as she’d slumped forward on the mounted strider, her fingers wrapped in the cords of its neck. He’d had to unpeel them, something she made difficult even as she didn’t seem awake.

Leave it to Aloy to be difficult and rebellious even in her slumber.

He’d whispered to her that he had her, at which point the last tension in her body had eased.

She rested on his bed, now, hours later. A healer had come, applied their herbs and their medicines before declaring she’d live.

Bruises covered her, scrapes along her back, her face, a burn on her shoulder. What had happened to her? He’d seen her take down a thunderjaw alone; what could have done this to her?

A soft groan left her lips, beckoning Erend to her side. Her eyes opened, the bruising around one making the amber of her eyes more clear.

Wait, green?

The lack of light made them seem darker than usual, browner.

“Erend?” Her voice croaked the word out, shaking him from his musing.

Water.

She needed water.

Why hadn’t he thought about that? He really was useless, wasn’t he?

“Hold up a minute, Aloy. You’re safe. Let me get some water. Throat has to be dry.” He moved away from her spot, pouring water into a cup from a jug. When he turned, she’d sat up, the blanket still tucked beneath her arms to cover everything. He helped lead the water to her lips so it didn’t spill before he placed it back on the side table.

“Where am I?”

He rubbed his hand against the back of his neck. “You’re at my place. It’s not much, but I figured you’d like a bit more privacy than staying at the palace. Avad had a fit, but I think he knew if you woke up surrounded by palace servants, you’d make him pay.”

She frowned, then winced. Probably the cut above her eyebrow. “How long have I been here? How did I get here?”

“You’ve been out a few hours. No idea how long you were riding that strider, and I was hoping you could tell me how you got here. Never saw you beat up like this before.”

Aloy stared down at the top of the blanket, then at her hands, the wash of emotion over her features telling him she relived whatever had happened. “I fell,” she whispered.

“Fell? I’ve seen you climb; didn’t think you knew how to fall.” He cringed at his own laugh, at his stupid attempt to keep the conversation light.

“I was at the Eclipse base.”

The words sent a jolt through Erend, but he forced himself not to react, not to lecture her about how dangerous and foolish it was to go to an enemy stronghold alone. He knew damned well she did things she shouldn’t alone. She had no business attacking sawtooths from the bushes like some one person strike-team.

“There were too many to fight, so I ran. I repelled off the side of a bridge, but there was an explosion.” Her brows inched toward each other. “I fell a long ways.”

Well, that explained the bruises on her back, the burns as well since the Shadow Carja he’d seen often used fire arrows. Still, how easy would it have been for her to have landed wrong? She could have snapped her neck or broken her back and never made it back at all.

He swallowed away the fear he held each time she walked away, each time he didn’t know if she’d return. How had some little girl come to hold so much of his hope? His future?

A girl who had no idea how he felt, or if she did, might not return it. He was a fool, wasn’t he? Pining away for a girl who was so out of his league. He was a useless drunk who’d done nothing noteworthy in his life while she was changing the world.

“Erend?”

He lifted his gaze. “What?”

“I said I was sure you had better things to do than watch over me.”

“Oh. Not really, no. Avad would have my head if I left you, anyway, and he’s in a position to carry that threat out.” Erend offered a smile as he sat on the edge of the bed. “How’re you feeling?”

“Tired. Sore. A little foolish for needing you to take care of me like this.”

Erend laughed. If only she knew how damned much he wanted to take care of her. Not forever, not to lock her away, but to give her just a minute of peace and quiet. To keep everything else outside the door, to give her a chance to just catch her breath. She deserved that, deserved to not having people who rarely gave her a second thought pulling at her in every direction.

If he said that, though, she’d bolt. She was a girl who didn’t like being caged in. Instead, he shrugged. “You’ve taken care of me enough times. Consider this me paying back my dues.”

She smiled, that sweet smile he pictured the nights when she stayed gone, the ones when he wondered where she was. “I can get going.”

“Stay.”

“I can’t just take up your time, Erend.”

He wanted her to take it though, all he had to give. “One day, at least. You tumbled down a cliff; I think you earned a day of rest. The world will keep moving without you, and you’ll be all the better for having taken the time. Stay, just for a little while.”

She worried her bottom lip, gaze on the far wall. To think she had to consider taking time to heal, that she had so many things on her mind, on her shoulders, that she even felt a question about taking a single day to recover. “Yeah. Okay.” She moved her arms, the blanket going down as she reached for the cup of water.

Erend caught a glimpse of her breasts. Pale skin dotted with light freckles and tipped with pink nipples. He tore his gaze away, an awkward cough to cover his groan. “Uh, Aloy?” He waved his hand toward her bare chest.

“Oh!” The rustling of fabric said she’d covered herself before she whispered back, “Why am I naked?”

“The healer had to undress you to check for injuries. Besides, your clothes were covered in mud and blood. They’re being cleaned and stitched back up right now. Let me, um, let me find you something else.”

Like what? He didn’t keep women’s clothing around. He probably should have considered it, but he’d been trying pretty hard not to think about how she was naked and in his bed. They had lines in their relationship, lines that included neither of them acting as if sex was a possibility between them.

Not that it was. She’d never implied she thought of him like that, and he never dared hope.

He went to his closet and settled on one of his shirts, then handed it off to her with a soft apology for having nothing else.

A grunt from her, one of those unladylike sounds he adored, then a sigh. “I did something to my shoulder. Could you help me?”

Yeah, a drink would have been good. Hell, a whole night of drinking would have been a better choice.

Instead, he forced himself to keep his face neutral as he turned around. His peripheral vision caught skin, the blanket likely pooled around her waist, the fabric of his shirt in front of her, but he kept his focus on her face. The red of her cheeks said this was no easier for her than it was for him.

And, really, what sort of selfish oaf makes a girl feel bad when she’s the one injured?

“Course.” He reached for the shirt, offering her a smile he hoped put her at ease. “Just part of the services of a Vanguard, right?” He slipped the shirt over her head, moving it as she slid one arm through the sleeve. The wrist of the sleeve hung two inches over her fingertips, reminding him of how much smaller she really was.

He gathered the other sleeve and maneuvered it so she could get her other hand into it, though the process didn’t lack for muttered complaints from her. He pulled the fabric down once she’d finished, allowing himself the sight of her in his shirt.

Erend shook away the sight, the sense of possessiveness that swamped him. She wasn’t his, wouldn’t ever be. If he was lucky, really damned lucky, he might get just a bit of her time.

Aloy yawned, mouth gaped like the fish that ate insects off the top of the water. No, the girl didn’t have much of a mind for sultry.

“Tired?”

She ran her arm across her eyes, the sleeves of the shirt comical as they hung over her hands. “I guess so.”

“I’ll let you get some sleep. If you need anything, I’m just in the other room.”

When he turned to leave, to give her some privacy, she snatched his wrist.

Erend turned, gazing down at where she touched him. “Yeah?”

“Stay?”

His lips tipped down at the odd request. “You need your sleep.”

She tugged softly at his wrist, pulling closer. “I know. Just, I don’t really want to be alone. Stay, just for a little while?”

Erend smiled at the mirrored words, the ones just like what he’d said to her. He settled into the bed beside her, sitting up with his back against the headboard.

Aloy laid back down into the bed, rolling until she faced away from him. She shifted toward him so her back brushed his thigh. Sleep took her fast, her breathing evening out until she released soft snores broken by the occasional snort.

Erend stared down at her, at how damn normal it felt to have her there beside him. No jobs, no pressing issues, no emergencies. Just him and her in a moment of quiet when they had nothing to do or be but themselves.

Yeah, she could stay just as long as she wanted.

  
  
  



End file.
